Warren Knight

Just over a week ago, Eventbrite’s Tamara Mendelsohn published some interesting data, Social Commerce: A First Look at the Numbers, revealing the sales value of social media shares for the event ticketing site.

The Eventbrite data is interesting and has generated some useful discussion, but taking the data – along with the average sales value of an Eventbrite ticket ($60), it’s possible to use it to generate a ballpark valuation of your social media presence.

In a nutshell, to obtain a very rough estimate of the sales value of your social media presence, take the number of social media shares generated (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) and multiply those by the following coefficients (derived from Eventbrite’s data).  Then simply multiply the result by the average value of a sale (AOV).

• Social Media Sales Coefficient
  • Facebook =0.042 (for Eventbrite each Facebook share generates $2.52 )
  • Twitter = 0.007 (for Eventbrite each Twitter share generates $0.43)
  • LinkedIn = 0.015 (for Eventbrite each LinkedIn share generates $0.90)
  • Email (Share) = 0.039 (for Eventbrite each email share generates $2.34)

For instance, applying this very rough and ready logic to top brands on Facebook, and using Google shopping search returns as a proxy for average order value – we get an indication of how much these brands’ Facebook pages are worth

• Starbucks = $2.69M (if est av. order = $4 * 16,041,033 * 0.042)
• Skittles = $430,491 (if est av.order = $0.89 * 11,516,630 * 0.042)
• Victoria’s Secret = $6.40M (if est av. order value = $25 * 6,099,033 * 0.42)
• Converse All Star = $9.30M (if est av. order value = $30 * 7,380,742 * 0.42)

Of course, these valuations should be taken with a pinch huge mountain of salt; drawing any conclusions from the data from one particular company in a particular situation in a particular market with a particular (very good) social commerce strategy and applying it to completely unrelated companies in other markets ignores a mountain of variables that drive social media valuations.  At the very best, this rule of thumb calculation only provides a very initial indicative and caveat-laden ballpark response to the question ’how much is our social media presence [potentially] worth?’

For those, too cautious (or too wise) to use these preliminary social media sales coefficients for a proto-valuation of a social media presence – there are nevertheless a number of useful insights and data points of interest in the Eventbrite data

• A Facebook share is worth 6x a Twitter share (5.86x to be precise)
• A Facebook share is worth3x a LinkedIn share (2.8x to be precise)
• A Facebook share is worth an email share (1.08x to be precise)

So Facebook rules in the world of social media optimization (SMO), for Eventbrite at least, and indeed Tamara notes that Facebook is the #1 referring site for traffic to the company’s site, surpassing Google. On average each Facebook share drives 11 visits back to Eventbrite.com.

Other data of interest;

• On Eventbrite
  • A Facebook share generates $2.52 in sales
  • A Twitter share generates $0.43 in sales
  • A LinkedIn share  generates $0.90 in sales
  • An email share generates $2.34 in sales

• Facebook is the #1 referring site for traffic to the company’s site, surpassing Google
• On average each Facebook share drives 11 visits back to Eventbrite.com
• Averaging across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Email one share drives over 7 visits back to Eventbrite.com
• Sharing is independent of event size – the share rate remains consistent
• Classes/workshops and networking events have the most share activity, followed by fundraisers, conferences, and music events

Warren Knight thanks Paul Marsden